March 19th has long been marked on Christian calendars as the Feast of St. Joseph.

It’s hardly surprising that Joseph, the carpenter-father figure in the Holy Family is the patron saint of carpenters and those who work with wood. (These days, he’s probably watching over the non-union work force at Home Depot, too.) Besides his association with the building trades, Joseph is also credited with some Renaissance miracles involving the Church’s acquistion of land.

And indeed, in recent years, we’ve known people who venerated the saint for his rumored ability to move real property; popular lore has it that images of the saint must be buried on the subject property. St. Joseph medals favored centuries ago have given way to little statues—interred in back yards or (in the case of condo apartments) efficaciously tucked into potted plants

Much to our amazement, we’ve found entire websites, complete with Twitteresque testimonials, extolling the realty marketing powers of St. Joseph. At first we thought that remodeling icon Bob Vila had finally been canonized and was now authorized to wear a halo. But no, it was just St Joseph (who probably never had to work with toxic sheet rock or pull a building permit).

“The best real estate agent ever…” proclaims one happy seller.

Another is ecstatic that St. Joseph got her $5K over her asking price.

Presumably these people benefited from all the components of the $10.99 Saint Joseph Home Sellers Kit, which includes:

In this market, many of us need all the help we can get, so it’s worth noting that the same vendor also offers a statuette of St. Jude (whose bailiwick is Lost Causes…) Think about it: for the price of a couple of FSBO signs, you can have higher powers on your sales team.

It really is time for the saints to come marching in….

And if your heritage (or heart) is Italian you’ll also want to see today’s post on our food and culture blog about the Festival of San Giuseppe. It turns out that St. Joseph is so successful, he can get away with merely moonlighting as a Realtor. As San Giuseppe, he fulfills a very different role…